Stashed in a warehouse and left outside for decades, a Cistercian chapter house is taking shape. In August, its foundation, walls, and roof were reconstructed. (Abbey of New Clairvaux)

Surrounded by fields of grapes in the heart of northern California, on what was once one of Leland Stanford's three vineyards, the state's largest before prohibition, a weather-beaten stone structure is slowly being rebuilt, a continent away from its original home. What was once the chapter house for the Santa Maria de Ovila Monastery in Ovila, Spain, soon will be the chapter house for the Abbey of New Clairvaux in Vina, Calif.

The stones, carved between 1190 and 1220 by Cistercian monks, began their long journey in 1931, when vacationing newspaper giant William Randolph Hearst noticed the then-closed monastery and decided to make it a vacation home. However, Wyntoon Castle, as Hearst named it, was not to be. Despite the $85,000 he paid for it and almost another $1 million to dismantle and ship it, Hearst decided he could not afford to rebuild the monastery as the luxurious mansion he had envisioned because of the Depression and his worsening finances.

The ruins of the Santa Maria de Ovila Monastery in Spain (Abbey of New Clairvaux)

The stones spent the 1930s in warehouses before Hearst gave them to city of San Francisco with an agreement that they would be used to build a museum in Golden Gate Park. Because of funding problems, the museum was never built, but the stones did make it to the park in the early 1940s, where they endured the elements and worse. "They were plagued by fires," says Philip Sunseri, general contractor for the chapter house's reconstruction. "All the markings on the stones were lost."

After decaying for decades in Golden Gate Park, most of the stones finally made it to the abbey, 175 miles north of San Francisco, except for some which were used for retaining walls for the park's Japanese Garden.

"I didn't think we'd ever get them," says New Clairvaux Abbot Thomas X. Davis, who first noticed the 800-year-old stones in 1955. Despite his interest in bringing the stones to the abbey, they sat in place because of red tape until 1994. "What really set things in our favor was the Northridge earthquake," Davis says. The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the city, and the abbey worked out an arrangement to preserve the stones: The abbey would start rebuilding the 2,080-square-foot chapter house over the next 10 years and one day open it to the public.

Besides its age and its Hearst connection, the chapter house is unique for its style: It is one of the rare examples of Cistercian architecture in America. (Other Cistercian structures are the Ancient Monastery St. Bernard de Clairvaux in North Miami Beach, Fla., and The Cloisters in Bronx, N.Y., but as Davis points out, they are Romanesque, while the one being rebuilt in Vina is Gothic.)

The chapter house's foundation, walls, and roof are in place (Abbey of New Clairvaux)

Cistercian architecture is very simple and clean, with every element representing the Cistercian order's relationship to God. Geometric windows are used to create light and shadows, the absence of art and decoration suggests devotion to prayer, and the structure's height represents monks standing upright before God. "The architecture is used to create an experience of awe," Davis says. The design came about as part of the Cistercian order of the Catholic church. "It's kind of like thinking about Shaker architecture, except it's 1,000 years old," says Anthony Veerkamp, senior program officer at the National Trust's Western Office and a goodwill ambassador for the project.

As if getting the stones wasn't hard enough, reconstructing them has been another challenge. After arriving in 1994 at the abbey on 20 truckloads, a restoration team began identifying each stone and how all 5,000 of them would fit together. The stones were modeled for computer imaging, mapped, and then labeled. "Computer design really helped," Sunseri says. "The process was much more accurate and streamlined than it otherwise would have been." Workers studied dimensions and photographs so that the building will be a replica of how it looked in Spain.

The restoration has had its rough spots, though. Meeting California earthquake codes has been difficult, and limestone has had to fill in for missing stones. Sunseri says the most challenging aspect has been time. "The pace of work with this is much slower," he says. "You have to take each stone and carefully set it and make sure it's perfect."

Chapter house model (Abbey of New Clairvaux)

In August, phase one of the Ovila Chapter House—the installation of the foundation, exterior, and roof—was finished, 12 years after the abbey first acquired the stones. Davis says it will be at least a year before the second phase begins, as $2 to $3 million is still needed.

Once all the stones are finally in place, the medieval structure will return to serving its original purpose as a place for the community. Centuries ago, meetings and elections were held in the chapter house, kings and queens visited, and members of the order were officially inducted. This time around, the public will be able to enjoy the building, but it will still also be a place where the abbey's brothers can conduct their business. "It will be like a family room," Davis says.

The National Trust's Western Office gave the abbey a $4,000 grant toward a historic-structure report on some of the distillery buildings still on the vineyard.

"If you look at the history of what's happened to the chapel house, it's just been injustice after injustice. None of it should ever have happened," Veerkamp says. "It's a remarkable coming-home story."

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